Dandy of the Sepulchre
by Montparnasses-Dague
Summary: A series of Montparnasse-related, SHORT one-shots. Rated T for minimal violence, moderate language, vague sexual references, and general Montparnasse-like content. Please rate and review!
1. The Funeral

Montparnasse was the only attendee of Eponine's funeral.

Montparnasse wore his best suit, one he'd bought months ago and never had the occasion to wear. He knew that Eponine's funeral should be listed along with those other subpar occasions, but it wasn't. He brought roses, a full bouquet of blood red roses which he held in his arm like a baby.

It was a somber thing, held just past dawn. He had carried her body, bloody and cold, to the Cimetière Montparnasse, figuring that if his name couldn't be on the tombstone as a part of hers, that was a compromise. He payed the gravedigger to dig Eponine's grave, an unimpressive thing under a tree.

Once this task was done, the gravedigger walked off a bit, leaving Montparnasse alone with her corpse. He kissed her cold, lifeless lips softly and took an object out of his pocket. It was a ring, his deceased mother's, a simple gold band at first sight, but with an inscription on the inside- "toujours", or always. He slipped the ring onto her finger, a moment he would've enjoyed infinitely more if they had both been alive for it.

He left hours after the final deed of filling in the hole with her body and the cold earth was finished, once the tears had dried off his pale face. On his own finger he wore the counterpart to the ring which was held by Eponine's left hand. He walked away sullenly, hoping that he hasn't taken too many liberties. The bouquet of roses and a drop of his blood were pressed against her simple tombstone, to be visited and renewed daily.


	2. Montparnasse's Dream

Montparnasse sees Eponine across the street, wearing the sapphire blue gown he had once gotten for her. He wonders how this could be, since he knows she sold that dress, and calls out to her, "Eponine!" She doesn't turn around, just continues walking. He has to follow her. He can't not follow her. Not after last time.  
He tries to catch up to her, but can't. The distance between them is uncrossable. She looks straight ahead as she walks, and she walks until she reaches an open pit in the middle of a graveyard. She steps into it, tumbling into its depths.  
Montparnasse sees this from afar. "Eponine!" He calls out, in a panic. He runs now, stopping in front of the pit. He looks down into it. Piled in it are bodies, all vaguely recognizable: They are the lifeless bodies of his victims, and splayed on top of them is a much more familiar figure- Eponine. She has joined the rest of his victims, people whose lives he could have saved or spared.  
He wakes up with a start. It was only a dream, but one whose meaning he knows from weeks of having that very dream nearly every night.


	3. Seclusion

Montparnasse isolated himself from society as much as he could during the months following Eponine's death. He had no reason to speak to people, so he didn't. He left Patron-Minette in his past, unable to join them for crime rendezvous for various reasons, the largest ones being Claquesous' blatant absence and Thénardier's disregard for having lost two of his children. Montparnasse was back to solo work.

He spent his nights alone, which took a great deal of getting used to, and did most of his speaking to Eponine's headstone. These early-morning conversations were remarkably one-sided, but soothing nonetheless. Sometimes he brought the small leather-bound copy of "Candide" he once read aloud to the living Eponine.  
It took months for him to heal the emotional wounds of losing essentially every person he had cared about.


	4. Deadly Thoughts

After Claquesous' death, Montparnasse half-drags, half-carries the body to the Seine. He's torn-up inside and utters a shaky, tearless sob as he pushes his friend's corpse into the water, black with dirt and night.

For a quick second, Montparnasse considers throwing himself into the river as well. The thought is extinguished just as swiftly as it came. "No…" He mutters to himself, "No, I can't do that." He internally chides himself for allowing himself to think something like that. He killed other people for a living, not himself. He was worth a better death than that of drowning himself in a murky river. Especially when he had a new waistcoat waiting at home for him to wear the next day. 'And with Eponine to look forward to,' He thinks, and steps away from the river, trying to get over the self-hatred he feels for considering suicide as an option.

Little does he know, soon there will be no Eponine to look forward to.


	5. Unrequited

**This is a Les Miserables High School AU. As always, I do not own Les Miserables, Victor Hugo does. **

Montparnasse was sick of putting up with Eponine's shit. Yes, he liked her. He liked her a lot, in that weird way of his, but sometimes he just couldn't stand her. Especially her lack of consideration for him as she rambled about Marius. He had tried to drop hits, but enough was enough.

They were currently in his bedroom. Eponine sat on the edge of his bed while he sat on the floor in front of her. "And in English class, Marius came in! I guess he has my teacher, too, so he was asking for the homework. I said 'hi' to him, and guess what?" She asked him while running her hands through he waves of his dark hair. She didn't wait for his response. "He said 'hello' back! We're friends, 'Parnasse!"

Montparnasse nodded periodically, absently saying 'yeah' or 'that's good' every so often. He could picture how this scenario played out, and he was sure it was different from how Eponine perceived it. He knew of Marius, and could be nearly certain that he thought Eponine was annoying or weird. Maybe he even pitied her. This thought bothered him. Eponine may be desperate and silly at times, but she wasn't pitiful in the least.

Montparnasse slammed his pen down onto the black chemistry binder in his lap. "Oh my god, Eponine. No. Just… no." He twisted around to look up at her for a moment, just long enough to see the brightness drain from her eyes, before shaking his head and turning around.

Montparnasse stared down at the binder. "Eponine. Really. He does not like you. Not how you like him. I'm serious. And he never will."

Eponine fell silent for a few moments. "No, Montparnasse…" She said quietly, almost hesitantly, "He does like me. Cosette, the private-school girl? Marius will get over her. She's just a two-a-penny girl. Pretty, but that's it."

Montparnasse pushed the binder off his legs onto the dark wood floor and stood. He turned to face Eponine. She looked downtrodden now, thanks to him. Downtrodden, like she thought she was useless. That was a common thought when it came to Eponine. She looked up at him with sad eyes, and he looked down at her with his cold, dark ones.

Montparnasse kissed her, and she kissed him back. Just like always. It was just another normal day, with or without Marius' attention.


	6. Lookouts

Eponine and Montparnasse were supposed to be standing watch for her father, but they had decided against it. Well, Montparnasse had, and Eponine half-heartedly agreed.

"Come on, Ponine," He said with a wolfish grin, putting a hand on her arm to pull her around the corner.

"Parnasse, really? My father- he'll be angry if the police come and I can't warn him ab-"

Montparnasse cut her off. "It'll be find, Eponine. I promise. Just around the block, okay?"

She sighed and followed him, until he pressed her up against the wall of an old brick building, leaning in and kissing her. He pressed his grin onto her lips and pinned her bony wrist to the wall with his smooth hand, uncalloused from lack of manual labor. Her lips were dry but fairly clean.

Montparnasse's other hand pressed against Eponine's tiny waist, barely covered by the thin dress she wore.

They stayed in this position for a few minutes, until ruckus could be heard from around the block, undeniably the Gorbeau tenement.

Montparnasse ducked into the shadows, trying to conceal both himself and Eponine. But Eponine was spotted by a policeman, undeniably one of Javert's cohorts. He hissed her name, and she shooed him deeper into the shadowed, small alley. The policeman grabbed Eponine by the arm, which bothered Montparnasse almost to the point of revealing his cover.

And at that, Eponine was gone, Montparnasse left alone in the street staring at the corner the policeman had turned with his friend and lover.


	7. The First Meeting

The first time Montparnasse saw Eponine, it was beneath a bridge. He was disgusted and she was humiliated.

Eponine had been living under that bridge with her family for nearly three weeks by then. He had happened upon them one day, after a kill. Thénardier had heard of him, and he'd heard about Thénardier. Not good things, though. His business associate Babet had mentioned that Thénardier had been selling his eldest daughter, a miserable little thing, in an attempt to both raise money and get an in with the gang.

Thénardier nearly forced Eponine upon Montparnasse, telling him that Eponine would "be a good girl and do as he says," and whispering threats of beatings to his daughter. While Montparnasse had no desire to engage in anything with this girl, who appeared to be just a few years younger than him, he had a moral obligation. Yes, he killed people, but he also didn't want some girl to get beaten because of him.

Eponine noted that the stranger smelled of blood, with an undertone of the sweeter scent of roses. Eponine herself smelled of the filth she lived in. After leading her a few minutes off, Montparnasse spoke. "Look, mademoiselle. I don't want anything from you. I don't want to touch you and I certainly don't want you in my bed."

Eponine was relieved. The two walked about the city for a long while, long enough so that her father would be able to assume something happened between the two of them. At this point, Montparnasse took her home, if that's what one could call that bridge. Thénardier shook his hand vigorously and said he could come back anytime. Montparnasse and his expression of disgust left, glad to be relieved of the presence of that girl.


	8. The Barricade

Jehan refused to let Montparnasse go after he's been captured. He was left, tied to the stairs of the tavern, awaiting death. He struggled to get his hands out of their rope bindings, but he only succeeded in rubbing the skin of his wrists raw.

Shots rang out, the barricade just close enough to make out peoples' faces. Enjolras, the other students, and… Eponine. She was there, too. He shouted out to her, saying her name. He repeated this thrice, but she never heard him. One of the students did, though.

That student -Montparnasse didn't know his name- was apparently one less considerate of his situation. "Shut up," He said harshly. Montparnasse did just the opposite, shouting Eponine's name even louder. She looked around, but then turned back to the barricade. The student grabbed a rag and stuffed it in Montparnasse's mouth, gagging him. Now his shouts were muffled. A shot rang out in the distance, and he saw Eponine fall to the ground. Red bloomed across her chest, and moments later, Marius joined her, holding her. Montparnasse was thrashing his bound wrists wildly now, in a desperate attempt to free himself. He needed to get to Eponine. She couldn't die. She couldn't. He knew she had been pierced by that bullet, and that the bullet had been meant for Marius. She had aimed the gun at herself, twisting her own fate. Marius was holding her now. Montparnasse couldn't watch. He hated himself for watching, but it was like a train wreck- You couldn't stop. He continued in this manner, trying to slide his wrists out of their binding and spit the rag out of his mouth. His wrists stayed in that state, but he managed to cough the gag out of his lips. The student previously attending to him had rejoined his friends. Marius was getting up now, and handed Eponine's limp body to one of the others. Montparnasse couldn't watch, wouldn't watch, but he did anyway. Eponine was dead, and he'd only been able to watch, helplessly.


	9. Road Trip

It was a week after Montparnasse had graduated from high school that he convinced Eponine to go on an impromptu road trip. They were to travel from their hometown of Detroit, Michigan all the way to Los Angeles, California. Montparnasse had sold some tech equipment he stole from the school and now he and Eponine were adequately funded to go on an obscenely long drive.

Montparnasse knew that he would regret this decision from the very beginning. While he did love Eponine to a certain extent, that love probably would not extend itself through days of driving. He wouldn't let her drive his black Camaro, stolen and packed to the gills with food and pillows and all sorts of stuff, so Montparnasse would be the sole driver.

They were already 14 hours into their two-day long drive when the Camaro broke down in southern Nebraska. Such cars hadn't been built for long distances, especially when driven at the speeds Montparnasse preferred (to prove this, he had photocopies of every ticket he'd gotten in the glovebox).

Montparnasse swore as the engine sputtered, then reanimated, and then sputtered to death again. He looked at Eponine, who had just awoken from a sleep in the passenger seat due to the noise. She looked back at him drowsily, "Wha's wrong?"

Montparnasse shook his head and twisted the keys in the ignition again, swearing again when the engine still wouldn't start. He looked at the GPS, and back at Eponine. "We're broken down on the side of the road in what appears to be Nebraska." He breathed deeply and tried the ignition again, unsuccessfully, before pulling his iPhone out of the cup holder besides him.

After a couple minutes of web-browsing, head-shaking, and swearing, Montparnasse comes across the information he needs, and dials a number into his phone- A towing service. He speaks to them on the phone for a few minutes before hanging up and looking at Eponine. "They'll be here in ten minutes -there's some town down the road- and we'll get this thing towed and we can stay in a hotel or something for the night, okay?"

He didn't really care about her opinion on the matter. It was his car, his money, and his life. Well, it was hers, too, but that was besides the point.

The tow truck came and Montparnasse handed them the necessary funding -towing cost a pretty penny, he found out that day- and he and Eponine caught a ride into the small town, along with the Camaro.

Sure, it was a massive inconvenience and expense, but there wasn't much to do about it now.


End file.
